The apology of the Church of England, and an epistle to one Seignior Scipio…

24. AND thus is all that Liberty which ought to be in all Consultations, and especially in those which concern holy things, and which doth best befit the holy Spirit, and the Modesty of Christian Men, wholly taken away ⟨p. 175⟩St. Paul saith,¹ that if any thing be revealed to another that sitteth by, let the first hold his Peace; but these men command him to be forthwith taken and hurried to Prison and burnt, who shall but mutter any thing to the contrary: as the cruel Death of the two holy and stout men John of Hus, and Jerome of Prague is an excellent Witness against them; which two men they murdered contrary to the public Faith, and were thereby false both to God and Man. So the false Prophet Zedechias, ²when he had made himself a pair of iron Horns, smote Micaiah the Prophet of the Lord, and said, hath the Spirit of the Lord left me, and come to thee? thus having now excluded all others, they reign in Councils alone, and have the sole Right of Suffrages, and so make and divulge such Laws as the Ephesians did of old. Let no man (said they) who [Greek or Hebrew] wiser than the rest, presume to live here, upon pain of Banishment and Transportation: for these men will hear none of us.³ About ten years since, in the late Council at Trent, the Ambassadors of the Princes of Germany and of the free Towns who came thither, that they might be heard, were excluded out of the Assembly, and denied the Liberty of Speech: for the Bishops and Abbots said they would suffer no free Debate of the Cause, nor would they determine the Controversies by the Word of God; and that those of our Side were not to be heard, except they would recant; which if they refused, they were to expect no other terms in the Council, but to ⟨p. 176⟩be condemned; for Julius the III. in his Brief, by which he called that Council, publicly declared, that if they did not change their Minds, they should be condemned for Heretics without ever hearing their Cause. And Pius the IV. who hath now resolved to call again that Council, hath by the prejudice of his own single Judgment, commanded all those who have made defection from the Authority of the Church of Rome (that is, the greatest part of Christendom) without ever seeing or hearing them to be taken and reputed Heretics.